This silky, chocolate pie will simply melt in your mouth.
This pie is one of those desserts that is a staple…a requirement every major holiday. It is also one of the pies that everyone fights over and the first to vanish.
How to Make Chocolate Pie
To begin, you will need a baked pie shell. Have that ready and sitting on your counter.
In a small bowl, beat 2 egg yolks. Set it aside for now. Measure out 1 teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of butter and set them aside where you can get to them easily.
In a saucepan, combine 1 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of baking cocoa, 3 tablespoons of corn starch, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and 1 teaspoon of instant espresso powder. Stir those together.
Pour in 2 cups of milk.
Over medium heat, begin cooking the mixture, stirring continually until the mixture begins to gently boil.
Boil the mixture for 1 minute and remove it from the heat. The mixture will be nice and thick.
While whisking the egg yolks, slowly ladle about a half cup or more of the mixture in. This will temper your eggs so you don’t get scrambled eggs in you pie.
Pour the tempered mixture back into the saucepan and return it to the heat. Bring it back to a gentle boil and let it bubble for 1 more minute, stirring continually, and them remove it from the heat.
Add in the butter and vanilla. Stir until it is all combined.
(Psst! If you stop right here, you have just made an insane Homemade Chocolate Pudding!)
Pour the mixture into the pie shell. Allow it to come to room temperature, then refrigerate for at least an hour.
Serve with whipped cream.
Enjoy!
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Chocolate Pie
Ingredients
- 1 baked pie shell
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 c sugar
- 1/2 c baking cocoa
- 3 Tb cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
- 2 c milk
- 1 Tb butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- whipped cream for serving
Instructions
- To begin, set your pie shell on the counter and have it ready.
- In a small bowl, beat your egg yolks. Set aside.
- Have your vanilla and butter ready.
- In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, salt, and espresso powder.
- Pour in the milk. Stir together and cook over medium heat until the mixture thickens and begins to bubble. Make sure you stir continually. Let it boil for 1 minute and remove from heat.
- While whisking the egg yolks, slowly ladle in about a half cup or more of the chocolate mixture to temper the eggs.
- Pour all of the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
- Return it to the heat and continue to cook and stir.
- Bring in back up to a gentle boil and let it bubble for another minute.
- Remove from heat. Stir in the butter and vanilla until completely mixed in.
- Pour the filling into your baked pie crust.
- Allow it to come to room temperature and then chill in the fridge for at least one hour.
- Serve with whipped cream.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
If nutritional values are provided for this recipe, they are an estimate and will vary depending on the brands of ingredients you use. The values do not include optional ingredients or when ingredients are added to taste or for serving. If nutritional values are very important to you, I suggest using your favorite nutritional calculating tool with the brands you use.
I do the same steps except there are a few differences,
1. I use a homemade Graham cracker crust in a taller pie pan
2. After the chocolate filling is done I cover it with plastic wrap touching the pudding so that it does not develop a skin as it cools.
3. While the pudding is cooked I make one abd a half of your stabilized whipping cream
4. I fold 2/3 of whipped cream and pudding together.
5. I top it with the remaining whipped cream and grate a little nutmeg and dark chocolate on top of the whipped cream.
I am a born USA citizen but am living in the Netherlands. I also lived in Germany and graduated from a German/ American high-school that no longer exists but is an adult education center in Furth, Nuremberg, Germany.
I grew up as a military brat so wherever my father or step-father were stationed we ended up there. A lot of the German recipes also are made in the Netherlands but are called slightly different names but sound quite similar.
Try adding ground beef into your mac and cheese with a 1/4 teaspoon of yellow or dijon mustard. It is a big hit with my Dutch husband.
Sounds like my mother-in-law’s chocolate pie (minus the expresso powder, which I adore 😍
Question: Does expresso powder go “bad?”
Can you make ahead of time and freeze?
No, custard/pudding pies like this do not freeze well. The custard normally separates, creating a huge mess.
Constance, wow! That gorgeous, silky, chocolatey filling looks so luscious and perfect! I'm definitely going to make this over the holidays (and I may or may not eat it all myself). And I love the pretty plates you used in your photos.
Delicious! Looks just like my grandma's.
My recent post Nutty Shortbread
Oh my…yummy!
I have used your pie recipe for years!! Since homestead blogger days when I first saw a post you did on it. Thank you so much for this recipe, and my family thanks you to. It is by far the BEST chocolate pie recipe I have ever tasted.
Thank you so much Mona! It is classic. The only change I have made to it, is to add the espresso powder – it just accentuates that chocolatey flavor :)